Thursday, April 9, 2009

WWF, the global conservation organization: The 20,000 residents of tiny, vulnerable Mousuni Island in the Indian Sundarbans are using technology to protect themselves from climate change-related threats – including deadly cyclones and rising sea levels – now impacting more and more severely upon them.

WWF recently inaugurated a Climate Adaptation Centre on the island, which aims to help Mousuni villagers better handle climate change by providing integral services such as an electronic early warning system, disaster preparedness kits, knowledge, resources and skills for adapting to climate impacts and educational materials for students. Low lying Mousuni Island, at 24 sq km, is the second most vulnerable of the islands, but the information gathered by the new station will assist Mousuni and neighbouring sea-facing islands in the Sundarbans.

Additional climate change threats to Mousuni include tidal surges, increased soil and water salinity and sea-level rise. The southern part of the island is expected to lose more than 15 percent of its landmass by 2020 because of rising sea levels, according to WWF-India While the population on the island has been on the increase, the size of the island has diminished because of sea-level rise. The cyclones and tidal surges have destroyed the communities by breaching embankments, wrecking homes and destroying harvests because of salt-water incursion from the sea.

“Mousuni island is in peril,” said Anurag Danda, Head of WWF India’s Sundarbans Programme. “Its neighbouring island, Sagar, is recording a relative sea level rise of 3.14 mm which is alarming. We have to work towards increasing the adaptive capacities of the communities before it is too late.” Other adaptation strategies introduced by WWF have included the re-introduction of indigenous salt-tolerant rice plants to farmers on the island. As the market value of this variety (tal mugur) is not far behind other high-yielding varieties, farmers on the island have been successful in maintaining their livelihoods without having to worry about losing crops to salt water incursion….

June 2009 – At the studios of Cleanskies TV, I was interviewed about the costs of climate change, and discussed adaptation efforts underway in the US and around the world.

May 2009 – I helped draft the scenarios for Rising Waters, a multistakeholder scenarios effort focused on climate change adaptation in the Hudson Valley. The final report is now completed and available here.

May 2008 – I reviewed two books on climate and energy in the New Leader magazine: James Gustave Speth's The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability, plus Robert Bryce's Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence.

January 2008 – A very local paper covers a very global issue.... The Litchfield County Times in northwestern Connectictut ran an article in January 2008 about Carbon-Based.

Now available: Climate Change Adaptation in 2011

A selection of my writings from 2011, plus some of my posts, as well as links... all focusing on the risks of climate change